This course covers in the chronological order each defining step of an entrepreneurial project. It begins with very personal considerations related to getting to better know yourself better so as to decide if you are ready for the multiple challenges of entrepreneurship. It then deals with creativity in order to provide the right set of tools to find an idea with the right potential to disrupt an existing business. We then discuss how to gather a founding team, how to raise money to initiate the project, and how to deal with day to day cash management. Later in the course, we discuss the art of selling, focusing on business to business sales, and how to measure the product launch phase using cohort analysis. Later on, we discuss the challenges of HR in an entrepreneurial environment, and of recruiting at a point where nobody knows your company. We then describe very practical techniques to initiate the international development of a small company. Last, we cover the exit strategy topic.

EB

The course triggered and supported over it's duration structured reflection on my startup ideas, that's much more than I expected!

SG

Jul 04, 2019

Filled StarFilled StarFilled StarFilled StarFilled Star

pragmatic and concret with great tips to put in place asap, strategies which are more middle or long term

From the lesson

Knowing who you are

Welcome to the module 1. In this week, we’re going to deal with knowing who you are, because knowing yourself is the key to shaping a project that will truly fulfill you. We will talk about your “intimate mechanics”, and take a closer look at your inner functioning. We will also discuss your intrinsic values to help you assess if they match the demanding reality of entrepreneurship. Finally, we will see how you can analyze and then consolidate your “belief system”, i.e. the set of values that are the pillars of your personal and professional life.

Taught By

Ambroise Huret

Partner at Eleven Strategy & Management

Transcript

[MUSIC] Now that you have a better picture of your inner functioning, your values, and your intrinsic programs, it is time to consider entrepreneurship in the context of your many career possibilities. At this point, I would like you to stop and reflect briefly: What different options do you have for your professional life? And where does entrepreneurship fit into those options? You might have considered the extensions of your past experiences, but you may have more options than you think. To put this important life choice in perspective, a good tool to use is a simplified version of Robert Kiyosaki’s "Cash Flow Quadrant". The Cash Flow Quadrant illustrates the fact that you basically have four options in your professional life. The first choice you can make is to be an employee. When you are an employee, you "have" a job. That means that a corporation basically lets you temporarily use a position somewhere within its hierarchy. In a way, the corporation "lends" you the job for a limited amount of time, and you know that you can, and you will, be replaced at some point. What is expected of you, and the corresponding compensation that is assigned to the position, and not to you, will benefit you as long as you "have" this job. It is interesting to note that when defining what they do for a living, people say they "are", for instance, Head of Product or Business Development Manager, when in fact, they only temporarily "have" those positions. They also sometimes add the company they belong to, like "I am a Head of Product at L'Oréal", for instance, or "I am an associate at Merrill Lynch". In fact, they are only referring to positions within precise corporations, positions they only temporarily occupy. The second choice you can make is to be Self-Employed. By definition, as self-employed, you "own" your job. No one can take from you your freelance position as a web designer, for instance. As a self-employed person, nothing in particular is expected of you, but at the same time, no predefined compensation is assigned to your position. Only you will determine what you accomplish in this position and how much money you will make in the end. It is interesting to note that the "Self-Employed" category has been steadily increasing in size over the last decade, mostly through the development of web-based platforms like Uber that make it easier for an individual to become self-employed. A sub-category of the self-employed can be called the "slashers", which defines individuals who combine either an employee job with a self-employed position or several self-employed positions. This constitutes an alternative possible choice for you. Now, I'd like to know about you, what kinds of job have you held in the past? 1. Employee 2. Self-employed 3. Employee and Self-employed 4. Several Self-employed jobs So far, I've shown you the most typical kinds of job, likely being the ones that you've identified. However, the Cash Flow Quadrant gives you two more choices. The third option you can consider, should you have some cash aside, is to be an Investor. As an investor, you do not work, and nobody directly works for you. Money works for you, and based on the quality of your investments, you end up either with more or with less money, and you cannot know in advance how much you will gain or lose. The last option you can consider is, of course, to be an entrepreneur, and more precisely, a Business Owner. As a Business Owner, you own what we call a "System", and people work for you. As a consequence, money also works for you, but just like an investor, you will only know in the end if your system created or destroyed money for you. This notion of owning a "System" is a very good representation of one of the goals of entrepreneurship, which is to create a business that becomes less and less reliant on you, and at some point, runs by itself. Can you identify yourself in a quadrant right now? Do you see yourself in a different one in the future? These decisions can be difficult. In the next video, you will have a chance to listen to flagship entrepreneurs explain to you why they have left their corporate positions for entrepreneurship. [MUSIC]

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